Drive Out the Spirits (2022)
Floodland Brewing in Seattle, Washington, United States 🇺🇸
Farmhouse - Saison Regular Out of Production|
Score
7.53
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As much as I loved those first beers the fruit was conventionally farmed and I wanted to find organic blueberries to work with. In 2020 a farmer had put me in touch with another farmer and we got good organic berries, so we tried to make this beer again. After months of refermentation we found that the beer had picked up a really light smoke character from some wildfires that we didn't know had reached the farm, so we didn't release that beer.
In 2022 we went back to the original blueberry farm I'd planned to work with in 2017, Bow Hill Blueberries. They are now under new ownership and a friend put us in touch. We took two varietals and fermented them separately to try to get a sense of how they differed. The one thing I'd learned from the first change in fruit was how difficult it is to anticipate what a fermented blueberry will taste like compared to eating it out-of-hand. Blueberries, like grapes, have so much tannin and just generally weird shit in them that the fermented product tastes very little like the fruit itself. While we'd magically hit upon seemingly ideal blueberries the first year, I am now of the mind that chasing the right berries to make this beer may be a fun ongoing path to follow.
This beer is packaged in clear glass, again a result of our shortage of glass bottles which left us without as much green glass as we needed. The clear glass is 3x the cost and so we're just eating that, this will be the second of three beers we had to use it for this year, I figured with the color of this beer it would be fun and we also did new art for the label.
This beer hits with a big blueberry candy aromatic that goes very grape-textured on the palate. It's dry and moves into classic blueberry funk, barnyardy and wild. There's still a touch of hoppiness hanging out that will likely fade out and I think that'll be when the beer really peaks, so this is a rare beer which I think would do well with another 6+ months in the bottle. Probably will drink best between September 2023 and Spring 2024.
Bottling date: 11/03/2022
ABV: 6.14% ABV
Cellar: best before Winter 2024
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mart (27297) ticked Drive Out the Spirits (2022) from Floodland Brewing 1 year ago
Funky, kuiv, puuviljane, herbaalne, kirss. Hea.
Oakes (33493) reviewed Drive Out the Spirits (2022) from Floodland Brewing 1 year ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
2022 Harvest Blend. 6.14% Dark purple, pinkish head. Hazy. The aroma is blueberry for the most part, a bit yeasty. On the palate, there's a fair bit of tannins, some fruity notes, light brett accents. There's some clashy elements in this.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
750mL bottle. Pours murky dark red with foamy pinkish head. Aroma is excellent; has spicy saison yeast, bugs, old wood. Flavour has some funky saison yeast, bugs, blueberry, floral notes. Solid carbonation. Fanastic dry, berry saison.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
750ml (thx, Josh!) @ Sales Force. Appearance: hazy purple with a rose head. Aroma: a lot of fruit and rustic notes, very tannic, oak. Taste: along the same lines, very tannic and rustic, manure, very dry, lots of fruit Overall: a bit too dry, but it's still nice.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
750mL bottle, pours a deep dark mahogany with a medium pink head. Aroma is loaded with tart blueberries, some oak, and subdued wild yeast -- really nice blend. Flavour is wonderfully integrated and complex, with tart blueberries, a touch of black pepper, oak, and subdued wild yeast. Really nice incorporation of the blueberries. Dry, lightly fruity, buggy finish. Excellent.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
Bottle shared at Craft Beer Junction - Bermondsey. Pours purple-blood red with a frothy, pink head. Lightly sweet with notes of dry funk, dried berries, blueberry, some bitter berry seeds, oak, cobwebs. Light to medium bodied with fine carbonation. Drying finish, some leathery berries, funk, wood, earth. Very nice.